The present epileptic
power supply is mostly due to sabotage, an official of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), said.
PENGASSAN’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Seyi Gambo, said in an interview with in Lagos last Thursday  that the Federal Government must act fast to stop it.
Gambo said that there was need for the Federal Government to do more in the protection of gas pipelines to improve power supply in the country.
He blamed sabotage for the worsening electricity supply across Nigeria.
According to him, host communities and security agencies saddled to protect the gas pipeline network must play an objective role in fishing out the vandals.
“We have lost some quantum of energy to pipeline vandalism which had resulted to a drop of about 4,000 megawatts of power supply.
“The consequence is that electricity consumers pay more out of their meagre salaries to power generating sets.
“Many companies, which can no longer cope with such drain on capital have relocated from Nigeria. These companies ought to provide jobs for our youths,’’ he said.
Gambo advised government to exploit other means of alternative energy to boost power supply.
He believe that the nation could generate more than 10,000 megawatts now but the challenges of pipeline vandalism had restrained the government from achieving the target.
He stressed that the vandals were bent on sabotaging the transformation of the power sector.
Gambo urged the government to expedite action on the completion of the ongoing10 Independent Power Projects across the country.
He suggested that the Federal Government should impose stiff penalty on pipeline vandals to check the menace.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government recently approved over one billion dollars to fight oil theft and pipeline vandalism.